Property Management

EMS Software on Digital Differentiators

Digital Differentiators

To attract the corporate tenants you covet, follow the first law of workplace technology:

Focus on the end-user.

By Tim Dillon

Put a group of commercial developers, building owners and corporate execs together in a room, task them to design their ideal office space from scratch, and the end-product might look a lot like Hudson Yards.

The tenant roster at the massive development on Manhattan’s Lower West Side reads like a who’s who of the New York City corporate world: TimeWarner, Turner, HBO, CNN, Warner Bros., Coach, L’Oréal USA, SAP and BlackRock, to name a handful. And the roster keeps growing as the $25 billion project, the largest private real estate development in the history of the United States, moves toward its target completion date in 2025.

Drawing tenants to the 28-acre mixed-use project is a compelling blend of lifestyle, commerce and cultural elements designed to appeal to the sensibilities not only of progressive-minded corporations but of the workers they seek to attract and retain: urban accessibility; a varied retail, corporate and entrepreneurial business community; residential living options; park land and other shared outdoor spaces.

And as far as enticements go, don’t overlook the state-of-the-art technology infrastructure that will serve Hudson Yards, it’s six million square feet of office space and the estimated 40,000 employees who will occupy it. When it comes to attracting desirable commercial tenants to an office space, whether it’s a single existing building or a massive new complex of buildings like Hudson Yards, technology is proving to be a true differentiator for developers and building owners.

Indeed, technology represents a key point of alignment between building developers and owners and their corporate tenants. A technologically well-equipped office space helps building owners attract and retain desirable tenants just as it helps their tenants attract and retain top-flight talent. So as a developer or building owner, it’s important to remember the first law of workplace technology: Focus on the user.

That means choosing tech investments wisely, with the employee in mind, because would-be corporate tenants want office space that will appeal to the types of employees they covet. They also want office space that keeps their people engaged and productive.

That engagement begins with the office environment. Today’s workers want open, comfortable and inviting spaces, with common areas to encourage random collisions and collaboration, plus other areas dedicated to quiet work. And they want those spaces to be equipped with the types of technology and apps they’re comfortable using inside and outside work, a reflection of the “blended” lives more people are leading, where the line between “work life” and “home life” is increasingly blurry. With its intermingling of commercial, residential, cultural and community elements, Hudson Yards appeals to that sensibility. Technology becomes the connective tissue that binds those elements.

Here’s a look at some of the tech investments that developers, building owners and corporate tenants are making to create spaces that appeal to employer and employee alike.

Technology that shapes the employee (and prospective employee) journey –Today’s employees expect their workplace to provide an experience, not just a cubicle, desk and chair for eight hours. That experience can start even before they enter the building, when an app on their digital device may suggest where parking spaces are available. Such an app would tie into sensors in the parking facility. Then, once in the building, if theirs is a company with a flexible officing/desking policy, employees can stop at digital kiosks near the entrance to learn where open desks are for that particular day. A wayfinding app then can help them locate that desk.

Technology that fosters in-the-moment collaboration – One Hudson Yards tenant the Boston Consulting Group, a global strategy and management consulting firm, had a hand in designing its offices from scratch — 200,000 square feet of space to accommodate 700 employees across six floors — and did so with the employee experience top of mind. In a report on the new BCG office, the Urban Land Institute (ULI) explains that the space, furniture, lighting, signage and fixtures throughout are designed for user comfort and convenience.

Each pre-reserved team and individual space throughout the office has electronic tablet signage that automatically updates to indicate the occupation status of that space, as well as who has booked it. So if people need to book a spur-of-the-moment meeting, the signage shows them which meeting spaces are available.

Technology that accommodates flexible office configurations –In BCG’s new space, private offices are assigned, not “owned.” When a person who’s assigned to a particular office is out, the space converts to meeting space, according to the ULI report.

In 2016, the Rand Corporation, a multinational nonprofit policy research organization, instituted a similar flexible office and workstation approach as part of a pilot workspace redesign project at its Washington, D.C., office. The redesign includes:

Offices and workstations that are reserved by the day or the week.

Offices have space, furniture and technology to support meetings. As with meeting space in the new BCG offices in Hudson Yards, digital displays identify the current meeting room occupant.

Workstations are equipped with a sit-stand desk and dual monitors.

The workspace redesign cost roughly the same as what Rand would have otherwise spent to reproduce its older office design in a new space, yet the capacity of the space has grown 40 percent. The redesign also bolstered collaboration, as two-thirds of Rand employees who work in the space said they had more unplanned interactions with coworkers than they did before.

What’s more, only two out of 63 employees impacted by the redesign requested a transfer back to their old offices after the six-month trial period ended. Now Rand says it plans to use its “future workplace” design elsewhere within its Washington office.

Technology that accommodates flexible work arrangements – No longer are employees tethered to an assigned desk, in an assigned office, in the same building, for a set period of time. Some 43 percent of American employees work remotely at least some of the time, according to a Gallop poll. Others work flexible hours outside the traditional nine-to-five window. And within many corporations, employees might be mobile, working in one city one week, then shifting to another of the company’s offices the next.

From working remotely to hoteling, where employees reserve a desk or office space on a daily or weekly basis, these types of work arrangements prove most productive when they’re supported by technologies that accommodate flexibility. So when a mobile employee shows up at an office, they can go to a digital kiosk near the front entrance and use it to find an open desk, instead of wandering until they locate one. Here is where a workspace management software solution of some type can help efficiently manage a hoteling system and maximize office space utilization.

With more companies allowing their people to work remotely, they need their office space to come with technologies to accommodate hybrid meetings, where some participants are on-site and others are offsite. That means equipping offices and meeting rooms with video conferencing capabilities that put remote employees on even footing with on-site employees, allowing them to seamlessly collaborate in real-time via apps such as Skype.

Technology for untethered digital connectivity – As companies move to more flexible office spaces, they are moving away from cabled workspace, to fully wireless technologies, as BCG did in its new Hudson Yards offices.

At Hudson Yards, that wireless capability extends beyond tenant and office boundaries, to public spaces. So when people leave the office, they don’t have to leave Wi-Fi behind. To strengthen and broaden the reach of their wireless coverage, developers are investing in distributed antenna systems (DAS), which provide robust coverage and capacity for large and complex venues.

Technology to eliminate logjams – Tablet-enabled digital room signage such as what BCG is using in its new space not only supports a collaborative culture, it also can make space utilization more efficient, particularly when combined with a meeting room management software platform. In the case of one of my firm’s clients, a U.K.-based multinational corporation, such a platform helped solve a meeting room gridlock problem at a recently opened office in Asia. The system gives employees the ability to book and rebook meeting rooms through multiple self-service access points, including desktop computer, mobile app, Outlook, kiosk and the tablet signage outside individual rooms.

Using the platform, the company’s HR department gained immediate and actionable insight into the meeting hours that were being wasted due to no-shows. Using the tablet-as-room-sign functionality, the company built an auto-cancel policy into the platform, so when no one shows for a meeting, that room returns to circulation. Overall meeting room utilization subsequently increased from 23 percent to 51 percent as a direct result of the new policy.

Using the software platform, the company also was able to identify staff members who were most responsible for no-show bookings. As a result, not only has it seen more collaboration among employees due to greater meeting room availability and flexibility, it recouped a total of 13,965 meeting hours in the span of 10 months, equivalent to $1.1 million in meeting-hour value.

Technology to maximize resource efficiency – Office space that comes equipped with occupancy sensors and beacons, including motion detectors and advanced Bluetooth radio devices, can help a tenant and a building owner minimize energy consumption. When a room is empty, sensors that are linked to a workspace management platform can tell the system to power down that room (lighting, heating, etc.). They also can monitor indoor air quality, as well as the status of equipment in the room. So if there are issues with a piece of AV equipment, for example, sensors can provide an alert.

Onsite tech support – More organizations are borrowing the Apple “Genius Bar” model, establishing popular café-like tech service stations where employees can walk-up or make appointments to get their tech issues resolved.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that tech features like these keep the end-user, the employee, happy, engaged and productive. For developers, building owners and their corporate tenants alike, that’s the end game.

Tim Dillon is the vice president of sales and marketing for EMS Software, the industry’s most powerful workspace and campus management platform. Dillon helps businesses and universities optimize their work and learning spaces by connecting people with the resources and technology they need to be more effective.